Representatives of parents, teachers' unions and school management have formed a new group to lobby on behalf of second-level education.
The new Post-Primary Education Forum will pitch for more funding and greater support for second-level education.
The forum reflects growing unease at the levels of second-level spending compared with investment in primary and third-level education.
The Republic is close to the bottom of the OECD league table when it comes to spending on second-level education in relation to average wealth.
Of the 27 countries measured in the most recent OECD reports, only four have a higher pupil-teachers ratio at second level than the Republic. In practice, this means that the average 500-pupil school in Ireland has nine fewer teachers than a school elsewhere in the EU.
At its official launch yesterday, Michael Moriarty of the Irish Vocational Education Association cited the huge potential of the new forum to lobby on behalf of second-level education. Diarmuid de Paor of the Association of Secondary Teachers said the various partners were united by their common demand for much greater investment in second-level education.
The group was formed after 12 months of negotiations between the various partners. It had been hoped to launch the forum earlier this year but some school management groups thought this unwise in the run-up to the general election.
The new forum is largely the brainchild of the National Parents' Council (post-primary) and its two directors, Paul Beddy and Jim Moore. Other parties to the new forum include both second-level teacher unions and the various school management groups. The forum is designed to "promote dialogue in areas of common interest".
Initially, the group will focus on increasing the overall budgetary allocation to second-level education but various partners are free to raise other issues and lobby for change, once this is agreed by all partners.
The parents' council, which is made up of voluntary members, has been underfunded and under-resourced for years, but it is hoped a new strategic review will open the way to place it on a more professional footing.
